Hello there :) So its been a while since I've written anything, between babies and work and, well, life! This is just a little story that has been floating around in my head for a while but I just haven't been able to get it down on paper, so to speak. I hope you enjoy the beginning of this little love story and enough so that you'd be interested in reading more. Any and all mistakes are my own. I don't own Vampire Academy or any of the characters etc...just me putting my own little twist on some parts.

Title: A Guardian's Love

Summary: She was born and raised to protect her charge at all costs. She had accepted that. That was until Dimitri Belikov came charging into her life and made her heart begin to ache for things she never knew she wanted. Will she get the chance to have her own happily ever after, or will she have to sacrifice it all to keep the ones she loves safe?

Rating: MA for later chapters

Thank you in advance for reading :)

A Guardian's Love

Chapter One

…Rose...

EVERYTHING HURT. Rose couldn't remember the last time she'd hurt this much. Then again, she'd never been held captive and tortured by a sadistic strigoi for days, weeks; time was irrelevant now. Glancing down she could see very little other than dried blood covering her exposed limbs and naked torso. Without a doubt this Strigoi was once a psychotic killer, evident from the multiple slices into her skin from the assortment of blades he had slowly tortured her with. He seemed to get great satisfaction from watching her bleed, before he'd drink from her. She didn't want to know what her neck looked like.

"Ah, sleeping beauty awakens at last," came the sickly taunting voice she had heard over and over. "I was starting to get lonely my pet. That smart mouth of yours gets me all worked up."

In all honesty, Rose just wished he would end it. She didn't have the energy for his sick and twisted games anymore. She'd also come to accept the reality that a rescue wasn't likely, especially given how long she'd been here. Hell, if they were smart they'd stay away anyway. The main priority would and should be to keep Lissa safe. Rose had made that very clear.

FLASHBACK…

"Eddie! Take her now! Now! Don't you dare leave her, don't you dare look back!" Rose's voice rang out loudly over the noise of another impending wave of Strigoi forcing their way through the haphazardly barricaded door that she stood against, the bodies of the three strigoi she had just killed laying at her feet.

"What!? No, no I won't let you! Rose!" screamed Lissa's voice from beneath the window that Christian and Mia were frantically trying to open.

"Rose…" said Eddie hesitantly stepping towards her.

"Eddie, you and I both know it's the only way, there's too many and they'll be too fast for the others," she argued as Christian pushed Mia up and through the now shattered window.

"We can't leave her! They'll kill her! We can't! Rose please!" Lissa's screams filled the small room.

"It's my job to protect you and it's the only way I can do that! Please Lissa! I need you to be safe," pleaded Rose before enveloping her in a fierce hug, the doors behind her succumbing to the force of Strigoi behind them a little more.

Holding Lissa's face in her hands, Rose forced her to look at her and listen. "I love you, you know that and I wouldn't leave you if we had any other choice. But we don't. I need you safe Lissa. We both knew this day would come," she rushed on as tears threatened to pour down her face as Lissa's flowed freely. Rose couldn't let her know she was scared out of her mind at the prospect of facing what stood behind those doors alone. "I need you to be strong and I need you to run. I need you to run like hell with Eddie, Christian and Mia and get to Dimitri. He'll protect you, he'll keep you safe," she said pushing her into Eddie's arms.

Dimitri…

"Christian! I need you…I need you to give him this for me," stammers Rose as she pulls the letter she had written weeks ago out of her back pocket, "I need Dimitri to get this, please."

"I'll, I'll make sure, I promise-" his words cut off by the shattering sound of the hinges giving way on the doors behind them.

In an instant Rose was pushing Christian towards the window where Eddie was somehow pushing a hysterical Lissa through into Mia's arms.

"Go now!"

"Rose! Rose!" Lissa's desperate screams filled the room as Rose took one last glance at her friends. Christian looked scared but managed a nod in her direction, his actions telling her what he couldn't say. Eddie looked torn. She'd seen this look before. Mason. She couldn't watch another of her friends killed in front of her.

"Eddie please, no…" she begged. "Not again…"

His eyes told her he understood. He hated it, he didn't like it, but he understood.

"See you soon Castille," she said with a small smile as she swung and made contact with the first of at least four strigoi.

END FLASHBACK…

"Oh go to hell," she spat as icy fingers trail their way down her cheek.

"Oh my dear, dear girl," he taunts, "why we're already there. Well, you are at least," his cackle filling the small, damp yet brightly lit room as he approached her slumped and broken body holding a long thin blade.

"On your feet," he demanded.

"If it's all the same to you, I think I'll sit," her voice weary but filled with that sarcastic Rose Hathaway wit.

Her defiance is rewarded with a fierce back hand to the face before she is hauled to her feet by the ropes that bind her wrists. Rose can't help the groan of pain that escapes her lips.

"Need I remind you what happened the last time you disobeyed me?!" her captor roared before a thick metal pole connected with her leg. The searing pain told Rose instantly that it was broken.

It took her a moment to realise the screams filling the room were her own as he ran the blade down the length of her torso, deeper than he had before, blood spilling rapidly towards the floor.

As Rose struggled to breathe through the pain, not wanting to give this sick and twisted monster the satisfaction of hearing her scream in agony, she could have sworn she could hear things crashing around from above. She quickly realised she wasn't the only one, as her captor ordered his two equally sick minions to check it out.

Rose tried to squash the feeling steadily building within her; this couldn't be a rescue, no one knew where she was. She couldn't afford to let herself think she was getting out of this, only to have those hopes ripped apart when B1 and B2 came back downstairs reporting a mere conflict between fellow strigoi.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

The voice sounded so distant, so far away but Rose had heard it. So had the filth holding the knife.

Seconds later the door flew open as one of the strigoi guards came barreling back through yelling something about a Guardian attack. Before he could respond, two strigoi I didn't recognize came falling through the already somewhat broken ceiling, necks snapped and stakes to the heart. Everything happened in slow motion then as Rose's captor began yelling at his accomplice to fight, and then, suddenly, he was there, charging down the hallway like death in a cowboy duster. Dimitri. Rose watched as his hands made quick work of the filth before him, leaving only her torturer, but he was no match for the clearly pissed Russian guardian.

"I need a medic now," he roared, sliding to his knees before me.

Rose couldn't stop the tears that started to flow, a combination of pain, utter relief that she was going home and the elation her heart felt at seeing Dimitri again. "You're here," she whispered.

"Roza," he soothed as he quickly lifted her in his arms, ropes discarded amidst her cries of pain, and carried her from hell.

"Stay with me Roza, please," he begged but she didn't have the strength the stop the shadows that were coming thick and fast.

"Love you…" she barely whispered before succumbing to the darkness.

To be continued…

So... should I continue? Any interest here? Feel free to leave a review and your thoughts :) Cheers!